Origin

The Old English word for a medical doctor was leech (despite popular belief, nothing to do with the worm, but a word meaning ‘a healer’). Physician arrived in the early Middle Ages, and goes back to Greek phusis ‘nature’, the root also of physical (Late Middle English), physics (Late Middle English), and numerous other English words. A doctor (Middle English) was originally not a physician but any learned person able to give an authoritative opinion, especially one of the early Christian theologians. The word started referring specifically to a medical expert at the start of the 15th century. It comes from doctor, the Latin for ‘teacher’, also found in words such as docile (Late Middle English) ‘willing to learn’; document (Late Middle English) ‘official paper, proof’; and doctrine (Late Middle English), originally the action of teaching.